


Event Horizon

by tatecorrigan



Category: Alien (1979), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, and one oppressive sense of existential dread, brief mention of acid burns, brief mention of chestbursters, brief mention of death, brief mention of facehuggers, if I demand first order/alien crossovers I feel obligated to produce them, not terribly gory but there is some mention of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 02:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8383978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatecorrigan/pseuds/tatecorrigan
Summary: First Order vs xenomorphs. One-shot drabble.





	

“I need you to cut it out of me.” 

Hux has collapsed, bent awkwardly into the corner of the passageway. He doesn’t struggle to get up, his body too exhausted after nearly eight standard hours of spiking levels of cortisol and adrenaline to do anything more than rest while they have the time. He does not seem to care, Ren notices, that he has collapsed in the passageway. Other than Ren, there is no one left to see him like this.

Through the Force Ren can feel the errant spark of worry that fires off at irregular intervals in Hux’s mind, anxiety spiking when he considers this last point. The ship’s computer systems continue to provide information about the status of the ship itself: engines are steady; shields are maintained; life support, though suboptimal, is within tolerable parameters. But with no information about the status of the crew, the underlying emotional foundation of Hux’s consciousness has begun to tremble with panic. 

Communication signals were lost some hours ago–four, maybe five. The decimated ranks of the junior officers gathering at the bridge had worked with admirable calm until then. “It’s in the walls,” a slim petty officer–Thanisson, Ren’s memory supplied–began to exclaim, his face contorted. “If signals are cut that means it’s in the walls!”  Even as Ren felt terror rippling through the crew Hux remained impassive, only shooting a dark look to the officer nearest Thanisson, who swiftly stepped forward to hit him across the back of the head with the business end of her blaster. Thanisson stopped panicking after that. He stopped moving at all. 

Even as his body dropped Hux moved to the nearest command panel, overriding operations with five security codes to order an immediate deployment of the containment seal system. Each sector of the ship closed off within seconds, a lockdown so thorough that each sector could maintain functionality, life support, and defense operations entirely independently. These features had been incorporated into the design of the _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyer to allow for maximum efficiency in ship-to-ship combat. The _Resurgent_ -era designs had not included defenses against threats originating on the ship itself. 

Somewhere, Ren senses, Captain Phasma is still alive. Her iron will still hums in the Force, though she is now alone, her determination beginning to fray at the edges, exposing a raw edge of desperation. Ren stopped informing Hux of troop losses after the first hour. Hux has always valued the maintenance of crew morale. 

And the creature– _creatures_ , Ren corrects himself with a suppressed shudder, blanching at the rapid increase in numbers over the past few hours, momentarily overwhelmed with images of so many white-armored bodies vivisected by bright red blooms spreading across their torsos–continue to move. He is fascinated by their presence in the Force. Even in his moments of greatest meditative tranquility the Dark had only rarely come to him in such pure, focused power, moving inexorably toward an instinctive end. 

Once, at the beginning of his life as Kylo Ren, he boarded an empty shuttle destined for the desolate moon in the Unknown Regions where Snoke had waited for him. For weeks he had been utterly alone, passing uninhabited systems and once, the warping crescent of light around a slumbering black hole. Lowering the shields to see it, Ren had felt the sound in his throat die, feeling even the Force balanced on the event horizon before pitching forward into bleak oblivion. He would never forget that feeling, he knew, and he would never feel it again. 

Until now. “You need to cut it out of me,” Hux repeats. His voice is too even, the invisible strings of his self-control beginning to show. He nods toward Ren’s hip. The lightsaber. 

Numbly Ren feels his hand reaching to his hip, removing the saber from its holster. “You could die.” Initial efforts to remove the primary-stage parasites from affected stormtroopers quarantined in medbay, two days and a lifetime ago, had resulted in pressurized acid burns rendering the troopers effectively dead. Even the medbay staff left standing had experienced painful and permanent disfiguration. Several officers had remarked on the potential of the new xeno species for development as biological weapons. 

“This threat must be contained, Ren.” Hux’s gaze is steady, as it has been since he first awoke from his coma and the dead shell of the parasite fell from his face, knowing it was only a matter of time. “This must not be allowed to spread.” Unspoken is Hux’s predictive terror: the rag-tag Resistance, and the overwhelmed incompetence of the New Republic, cannot contain this. If the First Order does not contain this virulence then the galaxy will be ravaged, until nothing but a shambling chaos remains. From ship to ship, Ren knows now, this pestilence will spread, seeding itself in every port and starbase, devastating isolated outposts and Core Worlds alike. 

Ren nods, grimly assenting, and Hux sags with relief. Hux opens his jacket and rucks up his undershirt, exposing his pale white belly as he stretches across the floor. As they both watch, the surface of his skin undulates as something shifts underneath, and Hux looks like he is entertaining the option to be sick. Instead he looks up at Ren, exhales deeply, and nods. 

Ren powers on the lightsaber. The red blade crackles, arcing to the rise of Hux’s flesh as something pushes through.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr.](http://gay-space-fascist.tumblr.com/)


End file.
